Grover Beach Team Books in Order

The Grover Beach Team books are Anna Katmore's sporty, swoony corner of young adult romance. Set around a Northern California high school soccer world, the series follows a close circle of friends, teammates, crushes, and future exasperations. The books are connected enough that characters keep wandering through one another's lives, but each romance gets room to breathe. That makes the series easy to dip into while still rewarding readers who like seeing a whole social group evolve over time.

Soccer is the glue, but feelings do most of the damage.

The starting point is Play With Me, where Liza Matthews joins the soccer team to get her longtime crush Tony Mitchell to finally notice her, only to crash into Ryan Hunter, the captain with the playboy reputation. Ryan Hunter retells that same central romance from Ryan's point of view, which tells you something important about this series. Katmore likes showing how differently the same situation can look from the other side. That keeps the books light on formal mystery but strong on romantic tension, misunderstanding, and payoff.

Later books branch out to other pairs in the circle. Samantha Summers and Tony get the push-pull treatment in T is for...he's a TOTAL jerk and Kiss with Cherry Flavor. Susan Miller gets tangled up with identical twins in Dating Trouble, and The Trouble with Dating Sue flips that story to Chris Donovan's perspective. Across the series, nobody is dealing with world-ending stakes. The drama is social, personal, and very immediate: first kisses, jealousy, bad assumptions, loud families, awkward texts, and the terrible timing that seems built into high school.

That smaller scale is part of the charm.

Even when the books drift from soccer practice to house parties or family kitchens, they keep the same easy rhythm. Katmore writes teens who can be dramatic, stubborn, sweet, and ridiculous in a way that feels exactly right for the age. The tone stays warm, quick, and very readable, with enough banter to keep things moving even when a romance is taking the scenic route. If you want interconnected YA love stories with team energy, lots of crush confusion, and boys who act cooler than they are, this series is a solid place to start.